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Imagine a world without shadows. You cannot touch a shadow, but a world without them is a hard world, and flat.

Franny Billingsley

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Franny Billingsley
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: July 3
Author
Writer
World
Flats
Shadows
Touch
Shadow
Imagine
Cannot
Without
Hard
Flat

More quotes by Franny Billingsley

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The boy shall have a proper beating,' said Cecil. 'But I beat him already,' I said, 'and don't tell me I didn't do it properly. I'm touchy about these things.
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I was asking about lust, wasnʼt I? I was fairly certain of it. But isnʼt love supposed to come before lust? It does in the dictionary.
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Boxing’s not that straightforward,” said Eldric. “You can practice and practice, but the real experience will always be different. Lots of things are like that, actually.
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I hated myself, but I also loved myself in a hateful way.
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It's one thing to keep secrets. It's quite another to lie.
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Now that’s true poetic irony. I rush into battle to defend the fair name of Rose Larkin, and what does she do but fetch Robert to stop me.
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I don't know what it is, but I ache for it each day. It's as though I have eyes, but there are colors I cannot see. As though I have ears, but there's a range of notes I cannot hear.
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I explained we lost the porch to the flood. Father hasn't gotten around to rebuilding it, although he's quite a good carpenter. He says if Jesus was a carpenter, its good enough for a clergyman. But I don't remember that Jesus let his house fall down.
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Our English monarchs are so unimaginative,” said Eldric. “They execute people in such tediously conventional ways.
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Yes, I'm shallow, I don't mind admitting it. Perhaps I should admit that there's no end to the depths of my shallowness.
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Let’s hope she’s like the others, who look only at the surface. Let’s hope she’d never think that a girl with black-velvet eyes and cut-glass cheekbones could be a witch.
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It is true that I can trip over anything and nothing – a speck of dust, a patch of sunlight, an idea. I move through life like a person with one eye, through a landscape that looks flat, but is really tricked out with hidden depths and shallows. It didn’t use to be so, but no matter. I navigate the world well enough in my own way.
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Even a witch wants sympathy.
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Father’s silence is not merely the absence of sound. It’s a creature with a life of its own. It chokes you. It pinches you small as a grain of rice. It twists in your gut like a worm. Silence clawed at my throat. It left a taste of burnt matches.
Franny Billingsley
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It’s one thing if a person learns you’re a witch. It’s quite another if he learns you’re a murderer. I almost forget I’m a witch now that I know I’m a murderer—murderess, actually. Murderess sounds so much worse.
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I might be a wicked girl who'd think nothing of eating a baby for breakfast, but I'd never allow myself to get expelled. It's far too public.
Franny Billingsley
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Father sighed. “Please spare me these arguments of yours.” “Whose arguments should I use?
Franny Billingsley
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You could at least complain,” I say. “I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.
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A poem doesn’t come out and tell you what it has to say. It circles back on itself, eating its own tail and making you guess what it means.
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My own mask stayed just where it ought. I’ve had lots of practice.
Franny Billingsley